The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics

Kant · en
* The common classical formulae of ethics- medio tutissimus ibis;
omne mimium vertitur in vitium; est modus in rebus, etc., medium
tenuere beati; virtus est medium vitiorum et utrinque reductum-
["You will go most safely in the middle" (Virgil); "Every excess
develops into a vice"; "There is a mean in all things, etc." (Horace);
"Happy they who steadily pursue a middle course"; "Virtue is the
mean between two vices and equally removed from either" (Horace).]-
contain a poor sort of wisdom, which has no definite principles; for
this mean between two extremes, who will assign it for me? Avarice (as
a vice) is not distinguished from frugality (as a virtue) by merely
being the latter pushed too far; but has a quite different principle
(maxim), namely placing the end of economy not in the enjoyment of
one's means, but in the mere possession of them, renouncing enjoyment;
just as the vice of prodigality is not to be sought in the excessive
enjoyment of one's means, but in the bad maxim which makes the use
of them, without regard to their maintenance, the sole end.



For the same reason, no vice can be defined as an excess in the
practice of certain actions beyond what is proper (e.g.,
Prodigalitas est excessus in consumendis opibus); or, as a less
exercise of them than is fitting (Avaritia est defectus, etc.). For
since in this way the degree is left quite undefined, and the question
whether conduct accords with duty or not, turns wholly on this, such
an account is of no use as a definition.

Thirdly. Ethical virtue must not be estimated by the power we
attribute to man of fulfilling the law; but, conversely, the moral
power must be estimated by the law, which commands categorically; not,
therefore, by the empirical knowledge that we have of men as they are,
but by the rational knowledge how, according to the ideas of humanity,
they ought to be. These three maxims of the scientific treatment of
ethics are opposed to the older apophthegms:

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 170}

1. There is only one virtue and only one vice.

2. Virtue is the observance of the mean path between two opposite
vices.

3. Virtue (like prudence) must be learned from experience.





XIV. Of Virtue in General

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 175}